c.1582
William Camden identifies Castleford’s Roman origins
William Camden, like Leland before him, travelled extensively around England. He produced a book Britannia describing the places he saw. He first published it in 1586, but it went on being added to and revised over many editions after his death.
He knew the Latin sources and was the first person to identify Castleford as a place in the Roman route lists. He also recorded that large numbers of Roman coins were found near the church. This confirmed Castleford’s Roman origins:
‘ … the older name of this place is that in Antonius, where tis’ called Legeolium and Lagetium which among other remarkable and express remains of antiquity, is confirmed by those great number of coins … dug up here in Beanfield, a place near the Church …’
;)
1. There are no maps of Castleford as early as the visits of Leland and Camden to help locate what they saw. This extract from the 1772 glebe map is the earliest to show the area where Leland and Camden described archaeological remains and finds.
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